Thanks to extensive research and noticeable changes in weather and storm prevalence, it’s getting harder to turn a blind eye to the reality of climate change. Since the Industrial Age spurred the increasing usage of fossil fuels for energy production, the weather has been warming slowly. In fact, since 1880, the temperature of the earth has increased by 1 degree Celsius.

Although 72% of media outlets report on global warming with a skeptical air, the overwhelming majority of scientists believe that the extreme weather of the last decade is at least partially caused by global warming. Some examples of climate calamities caused partly by global warming include:

Hurricane Katrina

Drought in desert countries

Hurricane Sandy

Tornadoes in the Midwest

These storms, droughts, and floods are causing death and economic issues for people all over the world – many of whom cannot afford to rebuild their lives from the ground up after being wiped out by a tsunami or other disaster.

Evidence also indicates that the face of the Earth is changing because of warming trends. The ice caps of the Arctic are noticeably shrinking, the ice cap of Mt. Kilimanjaro alone has shrunk by 85% in the last hundred years, and the sea levels are rising at the rate of about 3 millimeters per year because of all the melting ice. Climate change is also affecting wildlife – for instance, Arctic polar bears are at risk of losing their environment; the Golden Toad has gone extinct; and the most adaptable species are evolving into new versions capable of withstanding warmer water.

Despite some naysayers with alternative theories about why global temperatures are rising – including the idea that the earth goes through natural temperature cycles every few millennia – the dramatic changes in the earth’s atmospheric makeup suggests humans are to blame. In fact, 97% of scientists agree humans are responsible for climate change. Since the Industrial Revolution, carbon dioxide levels increased 38% because of humans, methane levels have increased 148%, nitrous oxide is up 15% – and the list goes on and on, all because of human-instigated production, manufacturing, and organizations and individuals work hard to promote an Earth-friendly existence, resistance to change is rampant and actions are slow. For instance, while the US Environmental Protection Agency is still working on collecting data to support development of greenhouse gas reduction expectations for businesses, most of their efforts feel more like pre-research than actual change. Other countries have made efforts – such as signing to Kyoto Protocol to reduce their 1990 emission levels by 18% by 2020 – but the only solution will require the whole world band together.

Steps anyone can take to reduce global warming include:

Driving a car with good gas mileage, or investing in a hybrid or electric car

Switching from incandescent light bulbs to CFL or LED

Insulating your home and stocking it with energy efficient appliances

Recycling

Using green power available in your area

Check out the infographic below to see what else the changing climate is affecting.

The Drug Policy Alliance is the nation’s leading organization for the promotion of alternative legislation on drug policy. Its reform ideals are based on human rights, science, health and compassion.

Mission Statement

The DPA’s mission is to assist in the development of new drug policy initiatives that promote sensible drug reform and alter current drug policies that are harmful or excessive. DPA has helped hundreds of thousands of people that were facing jail time avert incarceration and treatment programs. DPA also works to shape the perception of drug users. For instance, DPA assists those that use drugs such as medicinal marijuana and works to ensure they are not viewed as a criminal. As a result of new policy reforms, states such as California have saved more than $2.5 billion by eliminating ineffective laws and procedures. DPA’s ultimate vision is to create a world where people are not prosecuted for the substances that they choose to put in their bodies.

The History of Alliance

The DPA was founded in July 2000 as a result of merging the Lindesmith Center, a drug policy think-tank and the Drug Policy Alliance. The Drug Policy Foundation was founded in 1987 by a professor at American University, Arnold S. Trebach JD PhD, and an attorney, Kevin Zeese, who was the former director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. Together, they introduced a number of initiatives for drug reform along with a regular publication, and an awards program to recognize noteworthy drug reform policies.

The Lindesmith organization, on the other hand, was founded in 1994 by a professor of politics at Princeton University, Ethan Nadelmann JD, PhD, who had written a number of papers on drug policy. The two organizations, Lindesmith and the Drug Policy Foundation, merged on July 1, 2000 and began operating as the Drug Policy Alliance. It’s supporters are both varied and affluent, and come from a number of industries. Arianna Huffington, Russell Simmons and Sting are some examples of its supporters, just to name a few.

Policy Advanced by the Alliance

DPA has advanced several projects since 2000. One of its most recent projects is its participation in the Rhode Island decriminalization project, which successfully played a part in urging Governor Chafee to sign the marijuana decriminalization bill.

Another recent accomplishment was sparking the debate about drug policy reform in Latin America. As a result of DPA’s lobbying, several presidents in Latin America including Colombia, Costa Rica and Guatemala began to discuss decriminalizing marijuana. Guatemalan President, Otto Perez Molina, garnered worldwide attention after delivering a speech about the decriminalization of marijuana.

The most recent accomplishment in 2012, however, was the passing of the Good Samaritan law in California, which encourages people to call 911 during an overdose in exchange for immunity or a low-level drug violation charge.

Future Projects

Future DPA projects entail the legalization of marijuana in the United States. This undertaking has been divided into two projects. The first is focused on urging President Obama to end the federal criminalization of marijuana, which in some cases overrides state laws such as in California and Colorado. The second part urges people to contact their legislators in hopes of garnering support for the federal bill that would end federal marijuana prohibition.

]]>http://www.learnstuff.com/the-drug-policy-alliance/feed/0Kansas State Legislaturehttp://www.learnstuff.com/kansas-state-legislature/
http://www.learnstuff.com/kansas-state-legislature/#commentsThu, 06 Dec 2012 18:38:34 +0000adminhttp://www.learnstuff.com/?p=2985Kansas State Legislature Located in Topeka, the Kansas legislature is a bicameral assembly comprised of two chambers: the lower House of Representatives, which has 125 members and the upper Senate with 40 members. Members work part-time and the legislature generally [...]

Located in Topeka, the Kansas legislature is a bicameral assembly comprised of two chambers: the lower House of Representatives, which has 125 members and the upper Senate with 40 members. Members work part-time and the legislature generally meets once a year for 90 days, beginning in January.When it is necessary, the governor has the authority to call special legislative sessions.

Bills

According to the Kansas constitution, either chamber may introduce a bill or statute for discussion. It then goes through a series of of steps before it can be signed into law.

After a bill is proposed, it is referred to a committee which conducts hearings and deliberations and can propose amendments. Following the initial committee consideration, the bill is then sent back to the house of origin for further deliberations and amendments. It is then voted on by the entire house and sent to the second house.

The second house repeats the steps of the first house before the bill can be recommended to the governor. The second house has the chance to accept the bill as is, amend it or even send it back to the house of origin for clarification for more deliberation.

Once approved by both houses, the governor may sign the bill into law. However, if the bill is vetoed, it is sent back to the assembly where each chamber must pass it again but this time with two thirds majority in order to override the veto.

Statutes

Statutes work in a similar fashion to bills, however, as in other states or governing bodies, statutory laws are not meant to be enforced by the executive branch like regulatory laws. They are designed to be general, codified laws which courts or regulatory bodies may then apply to specific situations. In Kansas these statutory laws apply to everything from the certification of public accountants or providing consumer credit scores to elections and taxation.

]]>http://www.learnstuff.com/kansas-state-legislature/feed/0State Government Databasehttp://www.learnstuff.com/state-government-database/
http://www.learnstuff.com/state-government-database/#commentsWed, 05 Dec 2012 22:58:32 +0000adminhttp://www.learnstuff.com/?p=2906This state and local government database provides links to official state websites. It also includes links to the governor office’s homepage and each state’s legislative and judicial branches. Using the information provided by this database, you can voice your opinion [...]

]]>This state and local government database provides links to official state websites. It also includes links to the governor office’s homepage and each state’s legislative and judicial branches. Using the information provided by this database, you can voice your opinion about current political issues and advocate for your community through the policy makers who represent your area.

Each state offers users a way to contact their elected state and national congressmen online, as well as a way to email the Office of the Governor. Typically, this can be done by visiting the websites of the legislative or executive branch online. There is also a telephone number and physical address for these offices listed on each website if you would rather call or visit the office of your elected official.

]]>http://www.learnstuff.com/state-government-database/feed/0The Super Bowlhttp://www.learnstuff.com/the-super-bowl/
http://www.learnstuff.com/the-super-bowl/#commentsWed, 05 Dec 2012 22:51:19 +0000adminhttp://www.learnstuff.com/?p=2896The Super Bowl is an annual National Football League championship game held each February between the winners of the NFL playoff games. Since the first January 1967 Super Bowl game between the Green Bay Packers and Kansas City Chiefs in [...]

The Name of the Game

The Super Bowl was originally an organized rivalry between the two competing football leagues, the National Football League and the American Football League. Although there were several other rival football leagues, the American league which was founded in 1960 seemed to be giving the NFL, the older 1920s league, the most competition. To reconcile their competition for fans and players, the two leagues began to negotiate a merger in the late 1960s, which would break each league into two conferences prior to the 1970s season. To mark the occasion, the two teams would have a world championship, which would later become known as the Super Bowl.

The first two championship games were called the AFL-NFL Championship Game. After the first few games, however, the owner of the AFL’s Kansas City Chiefs began to refer to the Championship as the “Super Bowl.” It was said that the term “Super” was inspired by his children’s toy called “Super Ball,” and the term “Bowl” was taken from the popular college football championship games: the Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl and the Cotton Bowl. The media capitalized on the marketability of the name and by the third championship match, the official name of the game was Super Bowl.

How to Get to the Super Bowl: The Playoffs

A typical NFL football season consists of 512 games total (for all teams), with each team playing an average of 17 games each season (this does not include four pre-season games). This is plenty of time to separate the losing teams from the winning teams. Twelve teams–six teams from each conference–advance to the playoffs. Four of the six teams are division winners and advance automatically. The remaining two teams are called wildcard teams; they advance to the playoffs based on their win-loss record.

The two division winners of each conference with the best records skip the first round of games. Instead, they each host the second round. The third and fourth division winners, on the other hand, play the wild card teams. The team that wins this round advances to the Divisional Playoff games. In this round, the lowest ranking wildcard teams plays the division winner with the best record. The winners of this round advance to the third round, which is called the Conference Championship game. If a division winner still remains, then that team hosts the game. If not, the team with the best in-season record hosts the game. The two winners of each of the Conference Championship games advance to the Super Bowl.

Winners

Over the years several teams have stood out from the rest. The Dallas Cowboys and San Francisco 49ers have each won five Super Bowl games. The Pittsburgh Steelers, on the other hand, have won six. This is the most number of Super Bowl wins ever. Several teams have also appeared in the Super Bowl without any wins. Both the Minnesota Vikings and Buffalo Bills have each played in the Super Bowl four times, but neither team has ever won.

Some teams such as the Dallas Cowboys and Miami Dolphins have dominated in certain decades. In this case, these two teams dominated the 1970s Super Bowls, while the 49ers, New York Giants and Washington Redskins dominated the 1980s and 1990s.

Half-Time and Television Commercials

The Super Bowl is watched as much for the football as for its entertainment. The half-time entertainment spots and television commercials are widely anticipated each year, and the commercial spots are coveted by marketing executives. Advertisers know that the Super Bowl is one of the best advertising venues of the year because of its high viewer ratings. Because of this, companies prepare special commercials to air during the game and pay as much as $3.5 million for a 30 second spot that will only be aired one time. Nevertheless, commercials aired during the Super Bowl are usually discussed just as much as the football game.

Celebrity entertainers that are featured in the Super Bowl halftime show also garner a great deal of attention. Sometimes this is as much due to the quality of the performance, as well as the performance’s shock value.

Ratings

The ratings for the Super Bowl are so high that network television stations compete to broadcast the game. In years past, ABC,NBC, Fox and CBS have all broadcast the game. In recent years the Super Bowl has become the most watched television show of all time in the United States. In 2011, the Super Bowl XLIV became the most watched show in U.S.’s history, after beating the ratings of the 1983 finale show of M-A-S-H. However, this ranking has already been surpassed by the 2012 Super Bowl XLVI television ratings, making Super Bowl XLVI the most watched televised event in U.S. history. It was viewed by 167 million people around the globe, and one hundred and eleven million people were Americans.

Tom Brady leaves the field as the Patriots lost to the Giants in Super Bowl XLVI.

]]>http://www.learnstuff.com/the-super-bowl/feed/0OSX Dashboardhttp://www.learnstuff.com/osx-dashboard/
http://www.learnstuff.com/osx-dashboard/#commentsWed, 05 Dec 2012 22:38:41 +0000adminhttp://www.learnstuff.com/?p=2875The OSX Dashboard features “widgets” on Apple desktop computers and notebooks. These widgets offer similar types of applications or features that can be found on personal computers, such as a clock, calendar, calculator and dictionary. A wide range of widgets [...]

]]>The OSX Dashboard features “widgets” on Apple desktop computers and notebooks. These widgets offer similar types of applications or features that can be found on personal computers, such as a clock, calendar, calculator and dictionary. A wide range of widgets are available for Apple users.

The OSX Dashboard was first introduced with Mac’s OS X operating system, Tiger. The Dashboard is invisible until a user clicks on its icon in the dock. However, depending on the version of OSX that the user has and the user’s preferences, the ways that a Dashboard is activated varies. For instance, users can create a designated hot spot for the Dashboard and activate it by moving the cursor to the hot spot. The Dashboard also can be activated by using “hot keys”: for instance, in OS X Mountain Lion, the Dashboard can be opened by pressing F4, the launchpad key or by swiping three fingers up across the mouse pad. This is a new feature first made available on Mountain Lion. Users that have versions of OSX 10.6 (Snow Leopard) or earlier, however, must click the dashboard in order to activate it.

Once the Dashboard is activated, the desktop background dims, highlighting the default Dashboard widgets in the foreground. The widgets can then be moved around the screen by dragging their icons. Users can also delete or add additional widgets. To do this, click the widget browser, type the name of the widget to be added and click the icon. To remove a widget, select the remove button from the bottom of the screen and then select the widget to be deleted. To activate a widget, use the method listed above or simply click it.

]]>http://www.learnstuff.com/osx-dashboard/feed/0OneAmerican 500 Festival’s Mini-Marathonhttp://www.learnstuff.com/oneamerican-500-festivals-mini-marathon/
http://www.learnstuff.com/oneamerican-500-festivals-mini-marathon/#commentsWed, 05 Dec 2012 22:36:30 +0000adminhttp://www.learnstuff.com/?p=2871OneAmerica 500 Festival’s Mini-Marathon The OneAmerica 500 Festival’s Mini-Marathon is a half-marathon held in downtown Indianapolis, Indiana. Initially, the race was proposed as a bicycle criterium but was quickly changed into a half-marathon. It is held on a Saturday in [...]

The OneAmerica 500 Festival’s Mini-Marathon is a half-marathon held in downtown Indianapolis, Indiana. Initially, the race was proposed as a bicycle criterium but was quickly changed into a half-marathon. It is held on a Saturday in May, in conjunction with the annual Indianapolis 500 weekend.

The first mini-marathon was held on May 27, 1977 and was promoted by a handful of community leaders. It began at Monument Circle in Indianapolis, with about 800 runners. The first few years, runners had the option of taking a 13-mile or 7-mile route. In 1978, the field almost doubled, and by 1979, the number of runners was more than the small group of organizers could manage. The 500 Festival Associates took over the administration of the race and dropped the 7-mile route.

However, the race was not an official half marathon until 1983, when 500 Festival Associates had the course officially measured and certified. An official 5K course was added in 2000. The course of the mini-marathon race takes participants through several iconic locations around Indianapolis, including Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Maps and videos of the race course are available online. Results are also posted online after the race is complete, and a historical account of the finishing order is available on the website.

In terms of the number of participants and registrations, the OneAmerica 500 Festival’s Mini-Marathon is the largest half-marathon in the United States. Registration has been known to fill up by mid-December. The race is also one of the nation’s largest half-marathons, with more than 30,000 annual competitors. In 2013, the race costs $75 to register.

]]>http://www.learnstuff.com/oneamerican-500-festivals-mini-marathon/feed/0The Life and Works of Jean Baudrillardhttp://www.learnstuff.com/the-life-and-works-of-jean-baudrillard/
http://www.learnstuff.com/the-life-and-works-of-jean-baudrillard/#commentsWed, 05 Dec 2012 22:27:34 +0000adminhttp://www.learnstuff.com/?p=2659While trained as a sociologist of the late 20th-century, Jean Baudrillard is more renowned as one of the preeminent cultural theorists of post-modernity. Three distinct phases marked his intellectual career: his interest and growing frustrations with Marx; semiotics and the [...]

]]>While trained as a sociologist of the late 20th-century, Jean Baudrillard is more renowned as one of the preeminent cultural theorists of post-modernity. Three distinct phases marked his intellectual career: his interest and growing frustrations with Marx; semiotics and the use of Freudian psychoanalysis; and the discovery of a “hyperreality” of images from a media saturated culture.

Baudrillard analyzed what some biographers have called the “implosion of meaning that attends the postmodern condition.” His influence on popular culture has even been described as prophetic, for his understanding of how reality is nothing but a “desert,” and his views that reality is only simulation influenced current perspectives of how society has come to look at itself.

The anti-colonial struggle of the Algerians in the 1950s and 1960s shaped his first academic ideas. Earning his doctorate under Henri Lefebvre, he was influenced by Roland Barthes, a fellow semiotician. Another important influence for Baudrillard was Marshall McLuhan, thus shaping his interest in the sociological underlay of mass media’s impact.

A period that proved influential came during his tenure at Nanterre University of Paris X in the middle 1960s. The Paris Protests of 1968, made up of students and workers, encouraged Baudrillard to gravitate towards ideas of anarcho-situationism, structural Marxism and media theory. After this period, his work became more concerned with the power of affluence created by capitalism, an analysis sharpened by a new critique of technology. For seventeen years he would serve as a professor at Nanterre University, whereupon he fashioned critiques around what would become the philosophical concepts of hyperreality and simulation.

Post-Marxist (1968-71)

The System of Objects and Consumer Society both describe advanced capitalistic societies; commodity consumption is examined vis-a-vis psychological persuasions.

Baudrillard was heavily indebted to Marxism, but struggled against what some biographers call the “economistic Marxist tradition that privileges the economic sphere.” On one hand, his work during this period clearly belonged with other neo-Marxists. He believed that all human potential for freedom and creativity was lost through through a capitalistic process of alienation, which dominated social life.

His early work began to show an antipathy towards a consumer society that could be challenged by revolution. This intellectual direction might have noted an ambivalence with Marx, even an impatience. Yet Baudrillard was still bound up to the ideas of Marxist class struggle. However, his work at this time displayed a tendency to break out from what he perceived as the narrow limitations of Marxism. The study of signs heavily influenced Baudrillard, and Marx’s explanations could not adequately describe the direction of post-war Western society.

Socio-linguistic (1972-77)

For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign (1972) and The Mirror of Production (1973) are both noteworthy socio-linguistic texts, as they articulate Baudrillard’s dissociation with Marxism. These works were heavily indebted to the radical and ultra-left 1968 Paris Protests.

While this phase of Baudrillard’s work was particularly short in comparison to earlier and later periods, his “postmodern turn” attempted to provide an alternative method to studying capitalism (he sought a different path than that of political economy). During this phase of his work, he came up with the idea of symbolic exchange, which was partly indebted to Saussure’s work. Baudrillard used symbolic exchange to explain how societies organized themselves around signs and their meanings, as well as peoples relations and use of signs in their daily life.

Baudrillard meant to do more than merely critique the the role of the commodity in society, as he did in The System of Objects. He used Freudian psychoanalysis, specifically the idea of the “death drive,” to study how pre-modern societies ordered themselves and meanings of objects. Influenced by classical social theory, Baudrillard recognized how pre-modern societies used symbolic exchange to convey the meanings of objects and their power relationships in society. The symbolic exchange of objects was in sharp contrast to how moderns organized themselves around production. The power relationship within a production-oriented society followed along the lines of a Marxist class system, but the deeper meaning of production lay in what each object represented. These meanings, based around class, ordered the power relationships in modern society.

Using symbolic exchange did not mean a complete departure from Marxism, as Baudrillard never entirely abandoned the ideas of class struggle. Rather, symbolic exchange recontextualized Marxism. Using symbolic exchange to examine society marked an important turn in his way of thinking about class and whether it could challenge capitalism. His epistemological turn opened the way for a postmodern explanation of commodities and their psychological influence on the distribution of power in Western society. He now recognized the emergence of a postmodern society, one that was not organized around production but instead the simulation of reality. Television, computer cyberspace, and virtual reality became his concerns; this led to his so-called techno-prophetic stage. Entering this phase of his work would come with the recognition that the meanings of class no longer existed.

Techno-prophetic (1978-2007)

Simulacra and Simulation and In the Shadow on the Silent Majorities examines how a void of the masses defines contemporary society. The old, familiar class structures of modern society had vanished.

Already influenced by his concept of hyperreality (touched upon briefly in Symbolic Exchange and Death and best summed up in the desert of the real), people — the masses — never experience reality, but only simulations of reality; that is, mimetic reproductions. This he refers to as the simulacra.

By organizing his ideas this way, Baudrillard broke from the more problematic features of modern social theory. He meant to get away from an utilitarian outlook that used progress to define societies. Instead, the ruptures that have taken place between the premodern and modern is finally realized by the postmodern phase, where the simulacra best describe the articulation of power. Images and signs via the simulacra rules society; this includes the use of codes, models and signs.

By the disintegration of “real” meanings, postmodern society has undergone massification. That is, there is no longer any structures that define relationships. With no boundaries, the image becomes reality, and the hyper-reality that everyone experiences is what people come into contact with. This “contact” or hyper-reality is best expressed as the current technological model of media. People do not live their lives, as much as they recreate the models demonstrated by the desert of the real they travel through on television and the Internet.

Legacy and Future Resources

With his death in 2007, Baudrillard left behind a legacy that informs an understanding of contemporary society. The way that people interact with one another is evidenced through their contact with commodities. The distribution of power in a society is signaled by the access to objects. While earlier ideas of Marx are instructive in this matter, especially in how this power system is structured, Baudrillard went in a new direction by looking at the meanings of objects — not only in how they are referred to, but the ways the media constructs meaning of objects. With the meanings forming a method of exchange that formed a real organizing power in society, objects by themselves not only symbolized affluence, it was how objects came to be expressed, mainly through images, that power relationships were reinforced.

Readers interested in Baudrillard’s highly instructive interpretation of events can access many resources to his work today.

]]>http://www.learnstuff.com/the-life-and-works-of-jean-baudrillard/feed/0The Life and Works of John Deweyhttp://www.learnstuff.com/the-life-and-works-of-john-dewey/
http://www.learnstuff.com/the-life-and-works-of-john-dewey/#commentsWed, 05 Dec 2012 22:21:09 +0000adminhttp://www.learnstuff.com/?p=2653John Dewey was an American philosopher, educator, psychologist and pragmatist, most known for his progressive ideas on education. Dewey was born on October 20th 1859 to a family of modest means during a time of great change. He was born [...]

]]>John Dewey was an American philosopher, educator, psychologist and pragmatist, most known for his progressive ideas on education. Dewey was born on October 20th 1859 to a family of modest means during a time of great change. He was born the year Charles Darwin introduced his theory of evolution in The Origin of Species, and Dewey’s father, Archibald Sprague, was a Union officer in the Civil War, which indicates Dewey witnessed a great deal of change not only in the division and reunification of the nation, but in the common thinking of nation as well.
Dewey was born and raised in Vermont, and later attended the University of Vermont. After a brief stint teaching high school, reading, and philosophy, Dewey decided to attend a new graduate program at John Hopkins University. Part of his reasoning for attending the school was at the urging of his mentor, H.A.P. Torney, with whom he had been studying moral philosophy.

In 1984, Dewey graduated from John Hopkins with a PhD in philosophy and decided to take a position at the University of Michigan that was offered by his mentor at Hopkins, idealist George S. Morris. It was at the University of Michigan that Dewey attempted to merge the idealist views he learned from his mentors with those of his colleague, G. Stanley Hall. Hall was a lecturer at the University of Michigan as well, but he had a different perspective since he was one of the forerunners in the field of psychology after studying under William James at Harvard, and being the first to receive a PhD in psychology in America. Psychology at this time was fairly new and still a mix of pre-Freudian beliefs including spiritualism, mysticism and hypnosis. Dewey examined both Morris’ and Hall’s perspectives. Morris’ was traditional, representing the standard philosophical viewpoint at the time. Hall’s viewpoint, on the other hand, rejected anything that had to do with fatih. Dewey sided with Morris’ viewpoint, but later began to incorporate some of Hall’s perspectives shortly after Morris died.

In 1886, Dewey married his wife Alice Chapman , and moved to to the University of Chicago to become the head of the newly founded philosophy department, which also included psychology and pedagogy. He later created a separate department for pedagogy and founded the University Laboratory School, an experimental school aimed at incorporating new learning techniques. It was here that Dewey began to experiment with new paradigms for educational thinking. Dewey discovered that a hands-on approach to learning with activities such as art, cooking and play were effective methods for contextual learning. After witnessing the effects of his new teaching methods, he published several works including “Interest in Relation to Training of the Will,” “The School and Society” and “The Child and the Curriculum.” As the United States continued to transform from a primarily agricultural society to an industrial society, the teaching process and the educational system needed reform.

Dewey came to believe that a school should emphasize the curriculum as well as the child’s capabilities, not merely the curriculum. Disagreements about his concepts and the leadership of the Laboratory School with then President of the University of Chicago, William Rainey Harper, lead to Dewey’s resignation. He later accepted a position at the Teacher’s College of Columbia University in New York City. While there he helped to organize the Teachers League of New York, advocated for teacher’s unions, and was a respected leader in the field of education. HIs advice and expertise was sought out. While at the Teachers College, Dewey wrote several other influential works including How We Think, Schools of Tomorrow, and Democracy and Education.

These works were a continuation of Dewey’s developing educational theories that would soon be challenged. By the early 20th century, social darwinism, a concept that suggested that wealthy individuals were the “fittest” or most superior was circulating around New York. Some people proposed an educational system in which a test would decide if a student started an “intellectual “ track or a “vocational” track. Dewey rejected this idea, instead proposing that this was not a democratic means of education. As suggested in this book Democracy and Education, a democratic education was an environment where students were able to learn through context by interaction, play, and exploration in a multicultural atmosphere with students from all walks of life. This was in stark contrast to the teaching method of the time, which entailed dictation and repetition.

By the 1920’s, several students of Dewey’s had become teachers and administrators, and they began to institute what is referred to as a “progressive education,” which was viewed as an education for “self expression.” In some cases, the progressive education techniques stunted the growth of the children as teachers began to pay too much attention to respecting the individuality of the student, and not enough attention to the student’s learning rate. As a result, Dewey was forced to voice his opinion against his student’s practices, which he viewed as too pedagogic. He wrote of his views in the 1897 work “ My Pedagogic Creed.”

Dewey’s legacy are his ideas for an educational system that leads to social progress, but also develops a child’s capacities and interests while preparing them for an occupation. His works are still read and used as manuals for improving the education system, and The University of Chicago continues the tradition of John Dewey’s Laboratory School with its pre-K through 12 Laboratory School program which is still in operation today.

]]>http://www.learnstuff.com/the-life-and-works-of-john-dewey/feed/0Microsoft Office Convertershttp://www.learnstuff.com/microsoft-office-converters/
http://www.learnstuff.com/microsoft-office-converters/#commentsWed, 05 Dec 2012 22:09:49 +0000adminhttp://www.learnstuff.com/?p=2817Microsoft Office Converters Microsoft Office converters allow the user to open MS Office files without using Office. MS Office viewers allow users to view and print these files, though they do not allow users to make changes. Here are some [...]

Microsoft Office converters allow the user to open MS Office files without using Office. MS Office viewers allow users to view and print these files, though they do not allow users to make changes. Here are some of the most popular converters and viewers for MS Office.

The Textmaker Viewer 2010, along with the Planmaker Viewer 2010, allows users to read and print .doc, .docx, .rtf, .txt, .xls and a range of other Office file types.